Happy New Year!
Stop! Do NOT step on the scale!
Give yourself at least two weeks before you even think about stepping on the scale…even if you already have. Especially if you already have. Because where did that first step lead? Very likely to a mindset of regret and recrimination. Not the ideal way to begin your new year.
Did you gain weight over the holidays? Of course you did.
So take two weeks to let go of regret and readjust to your “normal” routine. In addition, readjust your attitude–but more on that later. Then weigh yourself. You’ll get a much more realistic sense of where you and your body are.
During your two week scale-break, drink a lot of water. Sleep eight hours a night and go to bed and wake at the same time daily. Eat less sugar, and eliminate alcohol. Only two weeks, you ask? But it took…yes. Two whole weeks to get out of balance. Two weeks to create a pattern of sabotage.
This year my girlfriend left town for the holiday (off to Napa with her family), and I was here working and training and taking time off and honestly trying not to pout about Rachel being away. Not that I wanted to be where she was; I wanted her to be home, because I am a homebody introvert. I am milking my Mom’s death (in fairness, there is no end to grief, but it doesn’t mean abuse yourself). I am not depressed, I am just making excuses about why I ate Pan D’Oro every morning. Italian cake. Coated in powdered sugar. With coffee.
It is ridiculously delicious and one of my favorite things. I know! I tend to eat very little sugar – not because I hate it, but because I love it and because it is so bad for my body. For my body, sugar makes my joints ache, and it makes me fat. But I also love that cake, and I chose to eat it and looked forward to enjoying it every morning.
When Rachel returned, I ate several additional things that I normally do not eat, including popcorn that I cooked in coconut oil (yum!) and my spectacularly delicious roasted potatoes pretty much nightly because they are her favorite thing. (Have you met her? She weighs a whopping 108 pounds on her heaviest day.)
So here I am on January 7, 2020, up seven pounds. Yes, I did get on the scale. In my next blog I will report how much of that I am still wearing–but who cares?
It was a joyful two-week romp, and for some of you that included not only the above but travel, dehydration, little or no exercise, and an irregular sleep schedule (which gave your body no opportunity to process the ton of joyful sugar and alcohol).
Change Your Ask
Your body gives you every little adaptation you ask of it—so change your ask. I was asking to get fatter and have achy joints, and my body rewarded me with exactly that. Truly, what do you want? Over the holidays our healthy habits go out the window. We incorporate incalculable patterns of sabotage and the feelings that ride on them—so the question now is: how do you want to feel?
Our culture dictates that we should all now begin a restrictive fad diet or fast to undo the overindulgences of the holiday. But what if we simply just acknowledge how we got here?
During the holiday two-week window you may have enjoyed traveling to a wildly different time zone in Hawaii or New York or St John…being on an airplane is dehydrating, and most of you probably don’t take your Coaching by G water bottles or your own food, which leaves you with so many choices: Starbucks or prepackaged airline food or something off your ordinary diet in the airport. When you change time zones, your body internal clock does not get the memo and tries desperately to maintain its circadian rhythm, which means that it releases cortisol at what is now (in the new time zone) inappropriate times. Plus—I bet you stay up later and sleep later and eat differently and drink more alcohol and eat more sugar and stress over new and different things–just a guess.
Your body likes routine.
Instead of a New Year’s resolution to punish yourself for enjoying the holiday, how about resolving to love yourself and create the rhythm your body craves. Restore some healthy habits to stop the patterns of sabotage. Eat well and sleep well and hydrate and move your body. Your body has a rhythm—the one you upset by traveling, eating poorly, staying up late, and not hydrating—and when you restore your circadian rhythm your hormones will rebalance happily and you will shed the extra weight. When the body knows what is coming, it is happy…..just like your dog or your baby. Keep a schedule and enjoy the benefits!
The minute you look at the scale, you form a thought based on the number and judgment about it. Before you do that, instead think of a time when you have really loved your body, and operate from that mindset for the next two weeks. See it and feel it, rather than feeling the regrets about your holiday eating. Then send me a note to let me know how different it was to begin your new year with new thoughts: g@coachingbyg.com.
In my next blog, I will incorporate your comments and feedback about how changing your mind changed your life. And I will share how changing my own thoughts changed my life.